Samsung U8000H  TV Review

The Samsung U8000H has bad peak brightness in HDR. It's not bright enough to deliver an impactful HDR experience. Small highlights don't stand out at all, and bright scenes are flat and dull.

The TV's peak brightness is the same when you switch to the low latency Game Mode. The TV processes scenes differently, though, so most content is a bit brighter than in FILMMAKER Mode.

The peak brightness in SDR is poor. It's not bright enough to overcome any significant glare during the day. It lacks a local dimming feature that can dim the screen by zone, but there's a global dimming feature, commonly called CE dimming, that dims the entire screen in very dark scenes.

The TV has poor contrast. The native contrast ratio of the panel is decent, but since it lacks local dimming, blacks are always raised, even in dark scenes.

There's no local dimming feature, so there are no lighting zones. This means there's no haloing around bright elements against a dark background or subtitles, but the entire image looks gray and washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. This means that there are no distracting flickers or brightness changes as bright highlights move between dimming zones.

Switching to Game Mode has no impact on dark details.

The black uniformity is good. There's some minor clouding throughout the screen, but no excessive flashlighting. Unfortunately, there's no local dimming to reducing clouding.

The TV has sub-par color volume. It can't display the full range of colors in the CIELAB DCI-P3 color space, and it barely displays the full range of BT.709 colors used by most SDR content. It also struggles to maintain color saturation in lighter scenes.

The HDR color volume of this TV is sub-par. Colors are flat and dull, with no pop to them at all. It can't display dark, saturated colors due to its low contrast ratio, and bright shades of blue are washed out in lighter scenes.

This TV has just okay accuracy in SDR before calibration. The most noticeable issue is its overly cold color temperature, and there's too much blue and green in most shades of gray. Gamma tracking is a bit of a mixed bag, as shadow details are crushed a bit but brighter areas are overly bright. Color mapping is pretty good, but saturated blues and reds are noticeably off and undersaturated.

The TV has excellent accuracy after calibration, but it's not perfect. The color temperature is a lot better, with a much more balanced, natural tone. It's still crushing shadow details, though, and it's impossible to correct it without severely reducing the TV's already-low contrast. Color accuracy is a bit better, but saturated reds and blues are still off.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

The TV's accuracy in HDR before calibration is mediocre. It has a noticeably cool color temperature, with too much blue in most shades of gray and not enough red. The white balance itself is decent, but shadow details are noticeably off. Colors are bad, though, and there are significant errors in both color mapping and luminance.

After calibration the TV has excellent HDR accuracy. The white balance and color temperature are much better, with just a few minor issues in midtones. Color mapping isn't much better, though.

The PQ EOTF tracking is excellent. There's a smooth roll off near the TV's peak brightness, which helps preserve gradation in bright content but limits how bright details can get. Near blacks are raised, though, due to the TV's lack of a local dimming feature and low contrast.

Unfortunately, the TV is completely ineffective at smoothing out low-quality content like most streaming services. There's no loss of fine details, but it can't reduce macro blocking and other compression artifacts at all.

This TV has just okay upscaling. The image is a bit soft overall, and fine details like text can be hard to make out.

The Samsung U8000H has just alright gradient handling. There's some banding in all darker shades. Bright reds suffer the most, though, as it can't actually display the full gradient and reaches peak red saturation early.

The input lag is just okay, but it's a bit higher than most comparable models on the market like the TCL QM5K. It's low enough for casual games, but more experienced gamers might find it to be a bit sluggish.

This TV supports up to 4k @ 60Hz with proper chroma 4:4:4 for clear text from a PC. It also supports a higher 120Hz refresh rate, but only if you drop down to a 1080p resolution. 1080p @ 120Hz is only supported if you enable VRR, and chroma 4:4:4 isn't displayed properly in that mode, so text from a PC is blurry.

The Samsung U8000H supports VRR to help reduce screen tearing. Due to its low maximum 4k refresh rate, though, it's not very effective, as it doesn't work with sources that support Low Framerate Compensation (LFC). This means you'll still see tearing unless the frame rate is close to 60 and only fluctuating a bit.

Unfortunately, this TV has a sub-par CAD at its maximum 4k refresh rate of 60Hz. Fast motion is very blurry due to the TV's very slow transition time. There's barely any overshoot or inverse ghosting, though.

This TV doesn't support a 120Hz refresh rate at its native resolution.

These results are the same as the max refresh rate, as this TV is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate at its native resolution.

This TV has alright compatibility with the PS5 or PS5 Pro. It supports up to 4k @ 60Hz or 1080p @ 120Hz, so you can run most games in either their performance or quality modes. It doesn't support 4k @ 120Hz gaming, though, so it can't take full advantage of either console.

This TV has alright compatibility with the Xbox Series consoles. It supports up to 1080p @ 120Hz or 4k @ 60Hz. It doesn't support high refresh rate gaming at its native 4k resolution, and it doesn't support Dolby Vision.

Thanks to its relatively slow response time when watching content, there's fairly little stutter. You might still notice a slight amount of stutter in very slow, wide-panning shots, but it's minor.

Unfortunately, this TV's motion interpolation feature is completely ineffective at reducing stutter. While it helps a bit in very simple scenes, even our test pattern is complex enough that the TV simply gives up trying to interpolate after a few frames. Enabling this feature also introduces judder on this TV, so motion is actually worse overall.

Unfortunately, this TV can't remove judder from any 60Hz sources, like a cable TV box or a streaming device with the Match Frame Rate feature disabled. Enabling any of the Picture Clarity settings also causes the TV to judder with any content, so motion isn't smooth.

There's no micro judder on this TV.

This TV has a slow response time when watching content. Motion is blurry in most scenes.

Transitions are slightly uneven, which causes noticeable color artifacts in some scenes.

This TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. It flickers at a moderately-high 480Hz at all backlight settings and in all picture modes. Enabling any Picture Clarity setting changes the flicker frequency to a far more noticeable 120Hz.

This TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion. Unfortunately, the pulse timing is off, causing a noticeable double image in moving content.

The glossy coating on this TV does almost nothing to reduce the intensity of direct, mirror-like reflections.

Ambient light has almost no noticeable impact on black levels on this TV.

Unfortunately, the total amount of reflected light off the screen is mediocre. There are noticeable diffraction artifacts around bright lights, and both direct and indirect reflections are very noticeable.

Ambient light has no significant impact on color saturation on this TV. Colors aren't very saturated even in a completely dark room.

Unfortunately, this TV has a mediocre viewing angle. The image degrades rapidly as you move to the sides, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement.

The gray uniformity is mediocre. There's some distracting dirty screen effect in the center, but it's not terrible. The sides of the screen are significantly darker than the center, though, and this is noticeable in all content. It's a bit less noticeable in dark scenes, though.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout. It doesn't affect picture quality but can cause issues with text clarity in some applications when using it as a PC monitor. The SPD shows that it doesn't use quantum dot technology or a KSF phosphor, which explains the limited color volume.

The Samsung U8000H has a basic selection of inputs. The HDMI ports are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, so the TV can't take advantage of high-bandwidth devices like recent consoles or gaming PCs. The tuner is also limited to ATSC 1.0, so it can't receive 4k broadcasts over-the-air.

This TV supports most Dolby Digital audio formats. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

The Samsung U8000H has a pretty basic design, but it looks better than many competing budget models. It has very thin bezels that don't stand out at all, but there's a bit of dead space between the side bezels and the first pixels.

The blade feet are very basic, but support the TV well. There's no alternate placement, either, so you can't adjust them to fit a variety of table sizes.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 39.4" x 8.7" x 2.8".

The inputs are housed in a central electronics box. Unfortunately, two of the inputs face straight out the back of the TV, making it very difficult to connect straight HDMI cables if the TV is wall-mounted. Unfortunately, there's nothing to help with cable management.

The Samsung U8000H has mediocre build quality. It's a very basic TV primarily made of plastic, and it feels pretty cheap.

The Samsung U8000H ships with the 2026 version of Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS. The interface is a bit slow at times.

Like most TVs, there are ads on the home screen. You can't disable them completely, although you can turn off targeted ads.

The included remote is simpler than the one that comes with higher-end Samsung TVs. It uses AAA batteries instead of rechargeable ones, and it doesn't have a solar panel on the back to recharge them.

• Remote control
• AAA batteries
• Power cable
• User guides

This TV was originally tested with firmware version 1203.

The Samsung U8000H has a sub-par frequency response. It can't get very loud, and dialogue is muddy and uneven at max volume. It also has barely any deep bass response, with no thump or rumble. Voices are clear and easy to understand at moderate listening levels, though.